An environmental studies and studio art double major, Kari Cholnoky '10 has found many opportunities to explore both of her passions at Dartmouth. She has been involved in a variety of projects, ranging from Kappa Delta Epsilon sororitiy's summer arts chair to head of design for the Big Green Bus. And to top it off, she's leaving a lasting mark on the Dartmouth Greek scene.
First of all, the artwork in KDE is awesome. What has been your role in that?
Every summer in KDE there is an arts chair. I was the arts chair along with Alex Huestis ['10] for 08X. We were in charge of T-shirts, so we did one with this Grateful Dead psychedelic gummy bears design on the front and gummy worms on the back. We also designed the Fieldstock shirts. And we're in charge of painting a wall and a table in the basement. The upperclassmen pick a wall before the summer, and that's the one we paint. I had to leave right before the end of the term for my term abroad in Italy, so it was really fast. I did the table first and spent a lot of time on it, so I ended up with less than an ideal amount of time for the wall. I'm planning on finishing that up this spring. We got the fundamentals down, and now we're going to go back into it and spice it all back up.
Have you done any art on other basements or spaces on campus?
My brother was an '08 Heorot. They were painting the wall behind their bar last year. One of the brothers was doing the Dartmouth coat of arms and I did "Heorot" in big, old English letters along the top -- just as a favor. BG's been begging for a wall for a while but they keep destroying the wall they want me to paint. So I told them unless they keep a wall in one piece for a while, I'm not going to paint it. Panarchy asked me to do a wall on one of their staircases so I Gesso'd it -- put a big layer of white down. Beforehand, the wall had all this magic marker on it so I wanted to make it all one solid color. I had also started a job doing research for a professor so I was super swamped with work for three or four weeks, and when I went back to Panarchy there was stuff all over the wall again. I guess I didn't work fast enough for them to assume I was going to finish it.
How did you get involved with all of these projects?
Well I'm a double major in environmental studies and studio art. I don't know how I got involved in the whole mural thing -- I think it might be that my art is usually super, intensely colorful. I also just really like doing things for people. During sophomore summer, AD had a white party, and I did neon spray paint all over the walls which was a nice way to contribute to the party. It's also nice to have a piece of yourself on every house on campus. It was also nice to give something substantial back to my house.
You mentioned you're also involved with Big Green Bus. What have you done for that?
We have a new bus this year. We got a coach bus to be faster and more sustainable -- I am head of design. We're doing a vinyl wrap around the bus so it's going to have the big bean sprout logo and "Big Green Bus" down the side and all of our sponsors on it -- that's really professional. I love art, but I've just been doing it on a college, frat-basement level and I've suddenly had to start working in a much more professional capacity. That's been a big learning experience. I'm also doing the apparel. We're having a Big Green Bus party this term, and I'll be spray painting T-shirts outside. We'll also be selling hats and apparel on campus this spring and summer.
You also work on the organic farm, so would you say your two main passions are environmentalism and art?
Yeah. When I first started combining them I didn't see the correlation, but as I've gotten older and got myself involved in different things on campus, it's totally undeniable to me that they can be joined together. Like when I took Painting 1, I painted on things I found in dumpsters -- like pieces of metal and wood and whatever -- just to reuse them. Our professor was asking us to buy wood while the painting studio was next to the woodshop and there was scrap wood everywhere, so I didn't really get that. More and more, I'm learning the two are related, which is great for my learning process since each one reinforces the other.
Do you have any future projects planned?
Yeah. For the summer, I'm trying to keep the studio art department involved in the Big Green Bus. I'm going to try to do art along the road this summer. I don't know specifically in what capacity I'll be doing it. It could be performance art or doing murals in cities that we visit. That's something I want to do while we're on the road, to give feedback to the department and let them know where I am and what I'm doing.
What's been your favorite project?
That's a really tough question. Part of me having a hand in everything is that I have a hard time picking one thing, ignoring the rest and sticking to it. For the studio art major, you take a senior seminar winter and spring. You have a studio by yourself and you're supposed to create a cohesive body of work that will be exhibited and you have to pick a discipline of work to do it in. But I've taken a class in every realm of artwork that Dartmouth offers and each one I take, I become totally obsessed with. I convince myself that the rest of the department is worth nothing and I should ignore it, but then I take another and the whole process repeats again. I don't have a favorite, which keeps everything new. Part of why I love art, instead of doing the same thing over and over again, is that it keeps being new and exciting. That's the best part about it.
